Onsted volleyball defeats LCAA rival Blissfield

Wildcats sweep Royals 28-26, 25-23, 25-19 to stay in league title hunt

By John CastleDaily Telegram Sports Writer

ONSTED — Tuesday's LCAA volleyball showdown between Onsted and Blissfield was one in which both teams were not only intent on beating each other, but making sure they kept Ida within their sights.

Ida is now the only team in the league which hasn't lost a league match after Onsted posted a very competitive 28-26, 25-23, 25-19 victory, handing the Royals their only loss in the league as both teams came out of the match with 5-1 LCAA marks. Blissfield and Ida play next Tuesday at Ida to finish out league play, the same night Onsted plays Erie Mason.

Onsted carries a 32-10-2 mark into this weekend's Lenawee County Tournament, while Blissfield rests at 19-9-4.

"One of our goals tonight was to try and win it in three," said Onsted coach Rhonda Hubbard. "I thought we minimized our mistakes tonight, and we had to try to shut down Savannah (Miller) and Claire (Denecker) the best we could. Savannah can down the ball if you go 1-on-1 with her, and we wanted to force her to go across."

That strategy worked some of the time, but not all of the time, as both teams continue to struggle with inconsistency on all areas of the floor.

"We still need to get the ball to our go-tos more, and that's Lexi (Johnson), Kelsey (Ross) and Gabby (Ratz)," Hubbard continued. "Ashlin (Aiken) is having to run all over the floor to up the ball and we need to do a better job getting a 3-ball, a ball that gives us three options."

Fans got a taste of what was to come all throughout the first set when Onsted scored the first five points on Aiken's serve for a quick lead.

Then Blissfield started a long comeback and eventually tied the game at 19-19, and Kelsey Suiter had two kills to keep the Royals within one twice at 23-22 and 24-23. She then served an ace to knot the score at 24-24, and it would eventually be tied at both 25 and 26 before the Royals were called for a lift and then Ross served a ball that the Royals couldn't get back over the net.

The second set was even closer, if that's possible. The score was tied 13 times, the last time at 16-all. That's when Onsted junior libero Hayley Fry served two straight aces to give the Wildcats the lead for good, with Ratz downing the final point. Blissfield had a crucial serving error late in the set for Onsted's 24th point.

"We had some bad serves at inopportune times, and generally we didn't show how good of a team we really are," said Blissfield coach Sandi Porter. "We need to clean up some stuff, and we need to talk better. We got quiet out there with exception of two players, but we need everyone talking. We let one mistake turn into a couple, and it seems to be different things with each match, it's never the same kind of mistake from one match to the next."

The third set had the same kind of scoring, with neither team able to mount a big lead, and the teams were tied at 16 apiece when the Wildcats decided they wanted it to come to an end. They scored nine of the next 12 points to put the match in the books. The Royals got it to 24-19 on a Miller cross-court attack, but then Johnson's kill went unchallenged for the final point of the set and match.

"We made two critical serving mistakes that third set, and it cost us some momentum," Porter said. "Tonight the pieces you expect to happen, didn't happen. We can and we will play a lot better. We have Ida to play, and we need to clean all our little errors up if we want to challenge them."

Aiken had yet another solid all-around match for the winners, going 16-for-16 serving with three aces and nine points as well as 22 assists, three block assists, 14 digs and five kills. Fry had 17 digs and was 13-for-16 serving with five aces and nine points. Ross was 16-for-16 serving with three aces and 10 points to go with three solo blocks, 12 digs and five kills. Ratz had 14 digs, five kills and was 10-for-11 serving with four points. Johnson had 13 digs and seven kills and was 8-for-9 serving while Riley VanSickle was 8-for-8 serving.

Miller and Denecker both downed nine kills and had seven digs for the Royals, with Denecker adding a pair of blocks. Suiter served a pair of aces among seven points and also downed nine kills with seven digs. Macy Goetz served seven points and had 26 assists while Kaytlin Martinez served six points.

Both teams will try to polish their games at Saturday's county tournament before their big LCAA finales next week.